


meet me in the hallway

by marcaskane (noblydonedonnanoble)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: City of Light (The 100), F/M, Flashbacks, but who knows if it works here, kind of, more like a muddle of real life and flahbacks combined, to create a mess that would be cinematographically killer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 05:54:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10893081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/pseuds/marcaskane
Summary: Clarke opened up a whole new world to Lexa after taking the flame.





	meet me in the hallway

            When Clarke took the flame, and then the chip, Lexa awoke in the City of Light, and an entire world was suddenly open to her.

            The experience was somewhat reminiscent of her ascension—then, too, she had felt like she was waking up from a dream, like her eyes had been in a fog before. In moments, she gained decades of knowledge that she’d never had access to before.

            It had been… magnificent.

            And that, right there, was the biggest difference. Because immediately upon entering the City of Light, a sense of pain and discomfort settled under her skin.

            Lexa could see why. She understood, intuitively, that she had access to an uncanny feature of the City that the other residents did not—that even Clarke did not (most likely because she didn’t want to see it).

            She could hear and see every person’s thoughts and memories with the utmost clarity. She could feel the way that their pain, anger, and fear fueled everything around them.

            Even as she fought by Clarke’s side, desperate to help her as she drew closer and closer to ALIE’s heart, the pain of the City clung to her.

            When establishing a truce with the Mountain Men, Lexa had never felt helpless. When reasserting her dominance after accepting the Sky People into Polis, Lexa had not felt helpless. When putting herself out there to express her love for Clarke, Lexa had not felt helpless.

            But Lexa looked at Clarke and considered how difficult it was going to be for Clarke to reassemble her broken people after pulling them all out of the City of Light…

            Yes. She felt helpless then.

            _“Stop laughing at me.”_ A phantom voice took Lexa by surprise. Giggles echoed around her, clashing uncomfortably with the shouts of the City of Light residents.

            _“I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing with you.”_

            _“That’s the oldest excuse in the book. Just admit that you’re making fun of me.”_

            It took Lexa several moments, and no time at all, to place the voices—she knew that it was Clarke’s mother and Marcus Kane.

            An image of them appeared clearly in front of Lexa the moment she processed this.

            These could not be the versions of Marcus and Abby that lived within the City of Light. They were far too emotive, sitting across from one another at a table that had appeared out of nowhere. Marcus’s jacket was off, his sleeves rolled up; Lexa noted immediately that he did not have the Coalition brand that she had placed on his arm herself.

            So. This memory was from some time before that.

            _“I’m sorry, Abby.”_ Marcus tucked his chin into his hand as his lips quirked up. _“It’s just that I remember how much you destroyed everyone at this game when we were young. I think you’ve lost your touch.”_

            Lexa craned her neck to get a glimpse at the game in question, but the memory was soft and blurred over the surface of the table, making the game itself seem irrelevant.

            Which made Lexa more attentive as she looked at their faces.

            Abby glanced between the table and Marcus, and every time her eyes landed on the man, her features softened. She had so much affection for the man who was teasing her, and Marcus looked to be entirely oblivious.

            Lexa thought of similar moments that she’d shared with Costia. That was a lifetime ago. She’d been just as unaware at first, longing to win the favor of one of the most miraculous girls she’d ever met, and…

            And she wondered how many times Marcus had turned this memory over in his mind, trying to determine whether he should trust those gazes—trust his assessment of those gazes.

            Marcus’s voice echoed through Lexa’s head again, from somewhere to her right. She spun around to face them, and if she’d still had a heart, it likely would have swelled. Marcus sat perched on a blurry couch, and Abby was curled into him, her head tucked between his chin and his chest.

            Marcus didn’t budge. Lexa could see his restrained breathing from several feet away, she knew he was trying to allow Abby to feel as rested as possible, but he was whispering something—no, singing. He was singing under his breath.

            Clarke stirred in Lexa’s arms, and out of the corner of Lexa’s eye, as Clarke leaned in to kiss her, a phantom Marcus reached for Abby and kissed her with remarkable vigor.

            The images persisted, spread across the streets as she and Clarke followed Becca’s guide toward the control room. Lexa lost track of the flashes of moments that she got, each one seeming less complete—a dash of a sentence here, a lingering look there.

            A faceless, _“I really admire how easily you’ve developed a rapport with Indra,”_ was quickly followed by a request from Marcus: _“Visit me in the guard tower when you’ve finished your shift in medical?”_ and a smile lurking in Abby’s voice as she said, _“Of course.”_ Marcus looked on proudly as Abby yelled at a faceless guardsman. Abby caught and held Marcus’s gaze from across a hall while they ate dinner. They stood before a map of the clans and strategized their exploration of the surrounding land. Marcus held Abby gently, tentatively as she finally (somehow Lexa knew that it was finally) allowed herself to cry over Clarke’s absence.

            It wasn’t that all the images were Marcus and Abby. It was just that Marcus’s memories appeared with an alarming frequency compared with everyone else’s, seemed to shine a bit brighter than everyone else’s. Lexa found it difficult to look away from them.

            _“I… I appreciated what you said to Diana back there.”_

 _“Everyone’s thinking it. But you and I… I think that you and I are the ones who’ll say what no one else wants to say.”_ Abby hesitated, staring out a window – through which Lexa realized, abruptly, that she had a remarkable (if faded) view of space – for a few moments longer before turning to look up at Marcus. _“Do what no one else wants to do.”_

            Marcus’s eyes widened just slightly. He opened his mouth and stammered toward words a few times. _“I’m sorry.”_

            Abby nodded, her jaw set, and looked back out the window. Marcus and Lexa were both equally taken aback when Abby murmured, _“Thank you. But you’re already forgiven.”_

            Lexa looked from Abby to Clarke, and she realized that Clarke didn’t need to be able to see these memories flooding to the surface to know that her people would have something to clutch onto when she brought them out of the City of Light.  

            She saw that underneath all that pain, anger, and fear, there was love, and affection, and admiration, and…

            Hope. So much hope not only for what humanity had achieved, but for where they were going.

            It didn’t matter, Lexa realized, whether Clarke could see these memories as they swirled around them just beneath the surface of the City of Light. Clarke always saw this part of her people.

            _“They need someone to show them the way out of the dark.”_ With those words, Marcus and Abby’s voices tangled together, becoming a blur as Lexa heard them over and over again.

            _“Our people need someone here to show them the way out of the dark.”_

_“They need someone to show them the way out of the dark.”_

            Yes. Lexa couldn’t agree more.

            So as an army of City of Light residents ran toward her, she pushed Clarke away. “Go. I’ll hold them off.”

             These people were in good hands. Remarkably good hands.


End file.
